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Indian Eights Association, 
1305 Akch St., Philadelphia, November, 1893. 

A DANGEROUS ASSAULT UPON THE INTEGRITY 
OF THE CIVIL SERVICE LAW IN THE 
INDIAN SERVICE. 



We call immediate attention to a recommendation made by 
the^Indian Commissioner in his report just issued, which we can- 
not but interpret as in effect a most serious attack upon the Civil 
Service Law, which was recently extended to the Indian Service. 
We ask the careful consideration of the public to this matter, 
and in all instances where our view of the case is adopted we 
trust that the friends of the Indian and of good government 
will use all proper means for the expression of their protest — 
such as editorials in the secular and religious press, personal let- 
ters to the President and to the authorities of the Indian Office, 
and to Representatives in Congress, in order to prevent the 
adoption of the recommendation referred to. 

The Commissioner asks that in the case of bonded superin- 
tendents of Government Indian schools the newly extended 
Civil Service rules, requiring a competitive examination before 
appointment, be abolished. The reason advanced for asking the 
abrogation of the rules in reference to bonded superintendents 
is that more suitable appointments could be made under the old 
system, which permitted the appointing officer to make selections 
without any of the limitations now imposed by the rules. The 
effect of this recommendation, if it is obtained, will be a reversal 
to the spoils system — first, in the case of bonded superintendents, 
and step by step in the case of all other positions which are now 
protected by the rules. Appointments will then be made by an 
appointing officer who, in the great majority of cases, will inevi- 



2 

tably make his selections under the importunities of Congress- 
men and other politicians who wish to use the offices in the 
Indian Service not primarily for the benefit of that Service, or 
v for the good of the Indians, but for the advantage of their party 
or gifts to their personal friends. 

Eleven years' experience with the actual working of the spoils 
system justifies us in stating most emphatically that such is its 
-practical operation. For eleven years we have fought in every 
honorable way known to us to rescue the Indian Service from 
this degrading and demoralizing system. We have succeeded, 
through the power of public sentiment, in gaining that point 
where we can at least say that the Civil Service Law has in- 
trenched itself in the Indian Service. We see in this recom- 
mendation the first step toward the destruction of what has been 
accomplished with so much effort and at so much cost. If this 
step be taken, a complete abrogation of the Civil Service Law in 
the Indian Service will be its logical sequence. If the reasons 
alleged by the Commissioner for removing bonded superin- 
tendents are sound, the same reasons will apply with nearly 
equal force to other positions. If the appointing officer can 
choose best when untrammeled by the limitations of the law in 
regard to bonded superintendents, he can also choose best in the 
case of teachers, physicians, and other subordinates. The argu- 
ments of the case are, with one exception, adequately presented 
by recent articles in " Good Government " and the New York 
Evening Post, quoted below. Of the exception referred to we 
will treat briefly. The Commissioner alleged a lack of practical 
information regarding the business qualities of persons certified 
to by the Civil Service Commission as having passed their exam- 
ination and being eligible for his appointment. We think the 
public will be under a misapprehension from this statement of 
the case, since a number of the questions to which applicants are 
subjected by the Commission are especially designed to ascertain 
the past record and occupation of such applicants, and to elicit 
practical information regarding them from which an appointing 
officer can judge of their probable fitness, just as he would be 
obliged to judge if he were to make the appointment wholly 
untrammeled by any regulations. In the latter case he would 
depend upon information submitted to him regarding business 



3 

capacity from various witnesses who, let it be remembered, are 
usually under the compulsion of powerful partisan bias to obtain 
the appointment. In this case he has information elicited from 
the applicant himself, the accuracy of which he is quite free to 
follow up and test by inquiry. If he finds that an eligible, for 
example, is third on the list he can select him in preference to 
the other two who have higher scholastic averages, in view of 
his record showing greater practical fitness. Or, in the case of 
all three eligibles being deficient in practical experience, which 
would lead the appointing officer to think rendered their ap- 
pointments unwise, he could apply to the Commission for the 
three next eligibles on the list with a view to securing greater 
practical experience. This request the Commission might accede 
to or deny, according to its judgment. It is somewhat amusing 
to one who knows how small a part fitness on the part of an ap- 
plicant for office in the Indian Service has played in his selection 
under the spoils system to see an advocate for a return to that 
system urge a desire to secure this quality of fitness as an argu- 
ment for the proposed course. The chances for fitness being 
obtained under the new system are immeasurably increased. We 
trust that this whole question will be opened fully and freely to 
public discussion, and its merits carefully considered before the 
recommendation referred to is adopted. We believe that such a 
consideration of it will lead to an overwhelming protest against 
its adoption. 

HERBERT WELSH, 
Corresponding Secretary Indian Rights Association. 



4 



From 11 Good Government" Washington, D. C, November 15, 1893. 

TRYING TO UNDO A GOOD WORK. 



The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in his annual report* for 
1893, urges the exemption of bonded superintendents of Indian 
schools from the operation of the Civil Service rules. 

This is merely in pursuance of the old aDd absurd plea that 
bonded officers ought to be selected without competitive exam- 
ination on account of the need of men of character and respon- 
sibility in such positions — as if a man lost any of his character 
and responsibility by the addition of a plain English education 
to the. other elements of his equipment! 

It is sincerely to be hoped that the President will not yield to 
this pressure. When the bonded places are exempted the next 
step will be to put all the superintendents under bonds, and thus 
turn over the chief places in the Indian school service to the 
spoilsmen once more. 

It took many years of earnest effort to get the rules extended 
to cover the superintendents. To take them out now will be 
merely to undo the good work done at such a cost. 



From New York " Evening Post," November 10, 1893. 

THE INDIAN SERVICE. 



A Complaint of the Civil Service Rules by the Commissioner — 
What It Amounts To. 



[Special Despatch to The Evening Post.] 

Washington, November 10. — The report of the Commissioner 
of Indian Affairs for 1893, which has just been issued from the 
Government Printing Office, contains a passage headed " Modifi- 
cation of Civil Service Rules." It says : — 

11 Under an executive order, issued in the summer of 1891, the 
operation of the Civil Service Law was extended over physicians, 



5 

teachers, matrons, and school superintendents in the Indian Ser- 
vice. This includes not only the superintendents who carry on 
schools where the Indian Agents are responsible for the school 
property and expenditures, but also bonded superintendents — 
those who have entire responsibility, under heavy bonds, for 
everything connected with their school, including financial 
management and property interests. The proper conduct of 
everything pertaining to the clothing, feeding; housing, and 
instructing of from 100 to 500 girls and boys calls for very 
large executive ability, business capacity and experience, and 
general knowledge of affairs, in addition to the qualifications for 
strictly educational work usually expected of a school superin- 
tendent. Lack of business management is ordinarily the weak 
point of bonded superintendents who fail. 

" A certification from the Civil Service Commission of names 
on the eligible list gives no information whatever as to the 
capacity of the persons certified for conducting business affairs, 
and I question if any system of written competitive examina- 
tions could be relied upon to furnish information of such a 
character. In view of the absolute necessity that the super- 
intendents of bonded schools, especially the large reservation 
schools, should be men of unusual force of character and 
business capacity, and in view of the inadequacy of a civil- 
service examination to indicate such qualifications, I am of the 
opinion that the good of the service will be promoted by 
removing bonded school superintendents from the operation of 
the Civil Service Law — so that such superintendents may be 
selected solely by reason of their fitness for the difficult and 
peculiar duties which will be imposed upon them instead of 
being gauged by their rank in a pedagogical examination." 

This is quite in line with efforts which are being made in va- 
rious other parts of the Interior Department to nullify the effect 
of the Civil Service Law and Rules. The important fact is, not 
that the officers making these suggestions are desirous simply of 
bringing about the particular changes they propose, but that 
they are disposed to strike at the whole merit system piecemeal. 
Having exempted one class of functionaries from the operation 
of the Civil Service Rules, it would be easy to procure the ex- 
emption of another and another class, until presently there 
would not be enough left under the operation of the rules to be 
worth saving. 

Inquiry at. the Indian Bureau shows that there is an inclination 
there already to complain of the operation of the rules in the 
service generally. The only distinct ground for fault-finding, so 



6 



far as can be ascertained, is that delays and hitches sometimes 
occur when it is desired to make an appointment speedily. The 
Commissioner complains that, here and there, persons who have 
been placed on the Civil Service Commission's eligible list find 
employment in private life, or for some other reason decline to 
serve when offered an appointment. With a view to seeing how 
much of a real grievance this is, your correspondent referred 
to-day to the books in the office of the Commission, and found 
that of 49 matrons selected by the Commission as eligibles, 19 
had found something in the way of their acceptance of the place 
when offered; of superintendents, 22 were selected, and there 
were only 4 such hitches ; of physicians of both sexes, 45 were 
selected, and there were only 4 who were prevented from accept- 
ing ; of teachers of both sexes, 184 were selected, and only 30 
hitches occurred. 

What the trouble in these cases amounts to may be judged 
from the fact that, in almost all the cases of teachers, the small 
pay — in the light of the distant journey from home and the dis- 
agreeable environments — involved in the first offer of a position, 
has induced them to wait and try their chances again later. 
Most of the cases where matrons have hesitated to accept have 
been where their husbands were eligible for appointments as 
superintendents, and had not yet been reached in the certifica- 
tions. These women naturally desired to be assigned to the 
same schools with their husbands, and, rather than be separated, 
declined their first offers with a view to a later certification to a 
place to which both could go. 

The idea that it is any the less easy to find a complete bonded 
officer by subjecting applicants to a Civil Service examination, 
than to find a competent officer who does not have to give a 
bond, is, of course, too silly to call for sober argument. If any 
risk is involved to the Government, the Government is certainly 
just as well protected by the bond of a man chosen by com- 
petitive examination as by that of one who has been foisted on 
the public service by some Western Senator with a political debt 
to pay. As for determining a man's qualifications, it can be 
done only by trial anyway, and the probationary period under 
the Civil Service Rules affords just as good a test as a similar 
period under the patronage system. 



Neither will any sober person argue that men of character and 
responsibility are entirely confined to the class who cannot pass 
a competitive examination. All that the Civil Service Rules do is 
to provide a select corps of men who are able to pass such an ex- 
amination with credit, so that men of character and responsi- 
bility may be selected from this group rather than taken indis- 
criminately from an organization of party workers. 

If the whole desire of the Indian Commissioner or the Secre- 
tary of the Interior were actually to procure some simple amend- 
ment of the system or modification of the character of the ex- 
amination, which would do away with present grievances, they 
could undoubtedly accomplish their object by a friendly con- 
ference with the Civil Service Commission, whose members have 
always shown a disposition to co-operate with the heads of 
departments and bureaus for facilitating rather than embarrass- 
ing business. The case has never yet arisen where an honest 
attempt has been made to overcome a real difficulty without the 
discovery of some way of doing it short of striking a blow at the 
fundamental principles of the merit system. It is to be hoped that 
the President, who has seen how these things work, will warn 
Secretary Smith to keep his hands off 1 . 



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